Senior US military official: Turkey 'needed a hook' and tricked us on ISIS

A
woman after having her nails painted with the colors of the flag
of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), during a gathering
celebrating Newroz, which marks the arrival of spring and the new
year, in the border town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province, on March
17.REUTERS/Umit
Bektas

A senior US official has accused Turkey of pulling a
bait-and-switch by using a recent anti-Islamic State agreement
with the US as a "hook" to attack the Kurdish PKK in northern
Iraq,
The Wall Street Journal reports.

"It's clear that ISIL was a hook," the senior military official
told The Journal, referring to the Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL,
or Daesh).

"Turkey wanted to move against the PKK, but it needed a hook."

On Tuesday, an American military source
told Fox News that US military leaders were "outraged" when
Turkey began its bombing campaign, giving US special forces
stationed in northern Iraq virtually no warning before Turkish
jets started striking the mountains.

"A Turkish officer entered the allied headquarters in the air war
against ISIS and announced that the strike would begin in 10
minutes and he needed all allied jets flying above Iraq to move
south of Mosul immediately," the source said. "We were outraged."

The confrontation highlights the tension growing between the US
and Turkey, which became a reluctant ally in the fight against
ISIS after years of
turning a blind eye to the militants' illicit activity on its
southern border during the Syrian civil war.

Ankara officially joined the coalition fight against ISIS on July
24, striking ISIS (and the PKK) on the same day. It also recently
began allowing the US to use the Incirlik airbase in Turkey to
carry out strikes against ISIS.

But Turkey has conducted 300 strikes against the PKK and three
against ISIS since July 24, according
to data compiled by IRIN news. All three ISIS strikes
occurred on the first day of the campaign.

When asked about Turkey's commitment to fighting ISIS, a senior
defense official said "there are still question marks out there.
Our folks are very eager to put it to the test.”

And if Turkey keeps going after the PKK while trying not to
provoke ISIS, "it will leave the US without a Syria strategy,"
geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer
told Business Insider by email.

"Access to Incirlik airbase matters, but the additional bombing
it enables will only help contain ISIS, not roll it
back," Bremmer added. "And it will leave Washington without the
improved relations with Ankara that the Obama administration is
hoping for."

Reuters

The
ongoing bombing campaign against PKK strongholds in northern
Iraq came as a surprise, but it probably shouldn't have: Turkey
has long seen the PKK — a designated terrorist organization that
waged a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey — as more of an
existential threat than ISIS, which refrained from launching
attacks inside Turkey even as its militants
lived and operated along the border.

"The PKK is a bigger threat to us, as it is active within the
country," a Turkish official told The Wall Street Journal. "They
stage attacks on our security forces on a daily basis, in many
cities. ISIS is more active in Syria, and is therefore less
urgent now.”

REUTERS

Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's bombing
campaign — capitalizing on the nationalist, anti-Kurd sentiment
that has been steadily growing inside Turkey — could help him
regain his AKP party's absolute majority in parliament now
that coalition
talks have failed and snap elections are likely.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, also a member of
the AKP, said on Thursday he would prefer an election to be held
"as soon as possible", Reuters reported.

"The AKP needed the Kurdish angle to sell the war to
ultranationalists inside Turkey," whose main priority is to curb
Kurdish territorial gains along its southern border, Jonathan
Schanzer, vice president for research at Foundation for Defense
of Democracies,
told Business Insider last month.

But Erdogan's gamble has come at a price: Nearly
40 Turkish police officers and military officials have been
attacked and killed by PKK militants since the war began, and
that number is increasing every day.

REUTERS

Erdogan has also complicated his party's relationship with
Washington further: While the White House was relieved when
Turkey announced it would allow the US to launch airstrikes
against ISIS from Incirlik airbase in its southeast, the PKK is a
politically contentious target.

The militia
was working with US-backed Kurdish fighters
to repel ISIS from northern Iraq and is also closely linked
to the Kurdish YPG militia, which, backed by US airstrikes, has
proved to be the most effective force fighting ISIS on the ground
in northern Syria.

Now the US is reportedly embracing an all-out partnership with
the YPG to make up for the failures of its $500 million Syrian
train-and-equip program — a move that is sure to anger Ankara and
inflame tensions even further.